ASU Baseball: Sun Devils in NCAA Regional
By Mike Slifer
Monday morning, the NCAA selection committee released the seedings and match-ups for college baseball.
The Road to Omaha has been charted. The Sun Devils are set for the NCAA Regional.
For Arizona State, their journey begins in California. The Sun Devils will be in a pool along with Cal Poly, Sacramento State and Pepperdine. In this pool play format, two losses ends your season. The games begin on Friday. ASU plays the second game against Pepperdine.
It’s playoff baseball. Every team in the tournament deserves to be there. And every team can knock off any other. However, it is the opinion of Devils in Detail that ASU has been given a pretty good draw. No offense to any of the other teams in this California regional, but none of them are traditional baseball powers. Nor are any of these teams playing in a big, nationally competitive conference.
On paper, ASU should win this regional. The Devils should have more talent, more depth and more experience playing against top-notch talent. It would be different if ASU was in a regional with Oklahoma State and Oregon. Or if they were in that pool with Texas, Rice and Texas A and M. But they are not. Furthermore, if they do in fact emerge from this regional, their likely opponent in the super regional will be TCU. The Horned Frogs are a good squad, but again, not your typical baseball powerhouse.
But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The task at hand is to beat Pepperdine on Friday, then beat whoever they draw on Saturday. All of these teams will be hungry to prove that they belong. And they’ll be throwing their ace pitchers at ASU. The Sun Devils will be the hunted. But they’ll have to play with the mentality of hunters. It’s the “second season” that every college team plays for. ASU fans are hoping that this Sun Devil team brings their best effort to the NCAA’s.
Devils in Detail will have more detailed match-up analysis in the days to come.